Instructions for Authors

Pan Arab Journal of Oncology (PAJO) follows most of the uniform requirements for manuscript submission to biomedical journal of International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE). Authors will find most of these recommendations in the following text to facilitate preparation of their manuscript.

Ethical Consideration

Authorship and Contribution

An Author must take responsibility for at least one component of the work, should be able to identify who is responsible for each of other component, and should ideally be confident in their co-authors’ ability and integrity.

Authorship credit should be based on (1) substantial contributions to conception and design, acquisition of data, or analysis and interpretation of data; (2) drafting the article or revising it clinically for important intellectual content; and (3) final approval of the version to be published. Author should meet conditions 1, 2, and3.

Potential Conflict of Interest

In compliance with standards established and implemented by ICMJE, it is the PAJO intent, to ensure balance, independence, objectivity, and scientific rigor in all of its editorial policies related to the Journal. Scientists have an ethical obligation to submit creditable research results for publications. Authors should describe the role of the study sponsor, if any, in study design: collection, analysis, and interpretation of data; writing the report; and the decision to submit the report for publication.

All contributors to the Journal are required to disclose any financial and other relationships with entities that have investment, licensing, or other commercial interests in the subject matter under consideration in their article. These disclosures should include, but are not limited to, relationships with pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies, device manufacturers, or other corporations whose products or services are related to the subject matter of the submission. The corresponding author may complete the form on behalf of other authors, or authors may complete their own forms and forward them to the corresponding author. This information will be sent to the Editorial Board.

PAJO has special form available on website (www.amaac.org) all authors have to fill form and send it back to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and include the statement in the first page. Reviewer must disclose to editor any Conflict of Interest that could bias their opinion.

Privacy and Confidentiality

Patients have a right to privacy that should not be violated without informed consent. Clinical trials and research have to provide approval of ethical committee or institutional review board dated prior the start of study. Statement of informed consent must be included in manuscript and author provides PAJO with a written statement that he/she have received and achieved patients’ consents.

Protection of Human Subjects and Animals in Research

On including human subjects in clinical research author must indicate that study procedure followed the ethical standards of the institution and with the Helsinki Declaration revised on 2013. On reporting animal experiments, author should declare that institutional and national guides for care of experimental animals were followed.

Overlapping publication

PAJO is not accepting a manuscript simultaneously submitted to other journal. Author must declare to the editor (in the title page) any sort of previous presentation of the manuscript or the research (e.g. conference, scientific meeting, and posting results in registries) that might be redundant or duplicate submission

Manuscript Categories

Clinical trials

The Editor-in-Chief and an Associate Editor generally review Reports from clinical trials. Selected manuscripts are also reviewed by at least two external peer reviewers. Comments offered by reviewers are returned to the author(s) for consideration. Manuscript acceptance is based on many factors, including the importance of the research to the field of oncology and the quality of the study. Authors should focus on accuracy, clarity, and brevity in their presentation, and should avoid lengthy introductions, repetition of data from tables and figures in the text, and unfocused discussions. Extended patient demographic data should be included in a table, not listed within the text.

Clinical trials are recommended to be registered in clinical trial database and provide PAJO registration number. Reports of phase II & III studies should include from the protocol a clear definition of the primary end point, the hypothesized value of the primary end point that justified the planned sample size, and a discussion of possible weaknesses, such as comparison to historical controls.

Phase I studies will be well received if they have interesting clinical responses, unusual toxicity that pointed to mechanism of action of the agents, and important or novel correlative laboratory studies associated with the trials.

Review Articles

All reviews must be clinically oriented, i.e., at least half the review must describe studies that detail human impact, marker effect on prognosis, or clinical trials. Review Articles should be prepared in accordance with the Journal s Manuscript Preparation Guidelines, and will be reviewed in the same manner as Reports from Clinical Trials.

Editorials / Comments / Controversies

The Editor-in-Chief may solicit an Editorial to accompany an accepted manuscript. Authors who wish to submit unsolicited Comments and Controversies should contact the Editor-in-Chief, before submission to determine the appropriateness of the topic for publication in the Journal.

Correspondence (letters to the Editor) may be in response to a published article, or a short, free-standing piece expressing an opinion, describing a unique case, or reporting an observation that would not qualify as an Original Report. If the correspondence is in response to a published article, the Editor-in-Chief may choose to invite the article’s authors to write a Correspondence reply. Special Articles present reports, news from international, regional societies as well as news from our compatriots.

Manuscript submission procedure

All manuscripts should be submitted in word format directly to the Editor-in-Chief by e-mail at the following e-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

The manuscript should adhere to the journal requirements. Upon manuscript submission, corresponding authors must provide unique e-mail addresses for all contributing authors. Receipt of manuscripts will be acknowledged via e-mail. Upon completion of editorial review, the corresponding author will receive notification of the Editors decision, along with the reviewers’ comments, as appropriate, via e-mail

Manuscript Preparation GuidelinesTitle Page

The first page of the manuscript must contain the following information: (1) title of the report, as succinct as possible; (12-50 words) (2) author list of no more than 20 names (first name, last name); (3) names of the authors institutions and an indication of each author s affiliation; (4) acknowledgments of research support or grant; (5) name, address, telephone and fax numbers, and e-mail address of the corresponding author; (6) running head of no more than 50 characters (including spaces); (7) list of where and when the study has been presented in part elsewhere, if applicable; (8) disclaimers (conflict of interest, informed consent of patients and Human and animal rights protection) (9) Word count of text only and (10) number of tables and figures.

Abstract

Abstracts must appear after the title page. Abstracts must be formatted according to the following headings: (1) Purpose, (2) Patients and methods (or materials and methods, similar heading), (3) Results, and (4) Conclusion. Authors may use design instead of Patients and methods in abstracts of Review Articles. Articles on clinical trials should contain abstract that include the items of CONSORT group (http://www.consort-statement.org/ consort-statement)

All submissions must include abstracts except comments and controversies, Editorials, Correspondence and book review.

Abstracts should not contain citations, figures or tables.

A list of key words should be provided and not more than 8 in alphabetical order below the abstract.

Word Count

The maximum length of an article, exclusive of tables, figures, references and abstract, should be as follows:

Original article 3000 words

Review article 4500 words

Editorial, Comments and Controversies 3000 words

Health economics 2000 words

Case report 2000 words

Letter to editor 600 words

Abstract 250 words

Authors must provide a word count for both abstract and the text.

Text

The body of the manuscript should be written as concisely as possible and must not exceed the manuscript category word limits described herein. All pages of a submission should be numbered and double-spaced. Times Roman and Arial at 12 points size are the recommended fonts for all text (see Figures section for acceptable fonts for figures). The Journal adheres to the style guidelines set forth by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors

Statistics

Describe statistical methods with enough details to enable a knowledgeable reader with access to original data to verify the reported results. Use P as upper case letter and italic. Avoid reporting an excessive number of digits beyond the decimal. Indicate whether P value are one sided or two sided.

Abbreviations

Try to limit use of abbreviations. Abbreviation used for first time must be in between parentheses. Abbreviations may be used in tables and figures and defined in legends. Avoid use of abbreviation solely to limit the word count.

Greek letters

Use Greek letters in text rather than spelled out words whenever possible (e.g. use a instead of alpha).

Footnote

Don’t use footnotes in the text

Numbers

Use Arabic numbers and use comma in numbers 4 or more digits

Metric measures

Use the metric system of all measurements for length, height and volume, etc. (e.g. temperature in degrees Celsius, Blood pressure should be in millimeters of mercury)

References

References must be listed and numbered after the body text in the order in which they are cited in the text. They should be double-spaced and should appear under the heading REFERENCES. Abbreviations of medical periodicals should conform to those used in the latest edition of Index Medicus and on MEDLINE. The List of Journals Indexed in Index Medicus includes the latest abbreviations. Inclusive page numbers must be cited in the reference. When a reference is for an abstract or supplement, it must be identified as such in parentheses at the end of the reference. Abstract and supplement numbers should be provided, if applicable. When a reference is a personal communication, unpublished data, a manuscript in preparation, or a manuscript submitted but not in press, it should be included in parentheses in the body of the text, and not cited in the reference list. Published manuscripts and manuscripts that have been accepted and are pending publication should be cited in the reference list.

Dupont E, Riviere M, Latreille J, et al: Neovastat: An inhibitor of angiogenesis with anti-cancer activity. Presented at the American Association of Cancer Research Special Conference on Angiogenesis and Cancer, Orlando, FL, January 24-28, 1998

PAJO accept 3 figures per manuscript (6 figures and tables per manuscript). Figures must be cited in the order they appear in the text using Arabic numerals. Figures should be submitted in a separate document. Accepted figures formats are pdf, eps, jpg. Figure legends are required for all article types. Figure legends must not exceed 55 words per figure and should be written below the figure in double space. Images may be embedded in word or PowerPoint files. Figures will be reduced to fit one column or two column width of the journal page so letters, numbers, decimal points and symbols in figures should be clear and at least of 10 point size font.

Tables

PAJO accept 3 tables per manuscript (6 figures and tables per manuscript). Tables must be cited in the order in which they appear in the text using Arabic numerals. Table should be typed in Microsoft word with double spaces on separate pages. Tables numbered in Arial font 12 points e.g. Table 1. Then table title. Table title must not exceed 20 words. The table’s footnote may include any pertinent notes and must include definitions of all abbreviations and acronyms that have been used in the table. Footnote must not exceed 55 words per table. Tables submitted with multiple parts will be renumbered

Appendices/Acknowledgments

Appendices and acknowledgments will appear in the print version of the article after text and before references.

Appropriate use of the English language is encouraged for publication in the Journal.

Post-acceptance Information

Copyright Form

Corresponding authors must provide unique e-mail address for each contributing author at manuscript submission. Upon acceptance of the manuscript, each author will receive an e-mail invitation to sign a statement confirming that the manuscript contains no material for which publication would violate any copyright or other personal or proprietary right of any person or entity. Manuscripts will not be published until each author has completed the form.

Page Proofs

Corresponding author will receive proofs and must carefully review them for data and typesetting errors. Corrections to proofs must be returned by e-mail within One week. The corresponding author is responsible for collecting and submitting all author corrections into a single submission. Publication may be delayed if proofs are not returned by the publisher s deadline. The Editor-in-Chief must approve all major alterations, which may delay publication of the manuscript.